AT GRAVESEND
When Lord John Russell visited Elba, he was asked by Napoleon, then a
prisoner there, whether he thought that his rival, the Duke of
Wellington, would be able to live without the excitement of war, which
Napoleon used to call "a splendid game." It seemed incredulous to
Napoleon that a man who had shown himself so good a soldier as
Wellington should retire into the position of a simple citizen, and
Napoleon, little knowing the great man, thought that he would probably
use his influence as a statesman to involve his country in war again.
To some it may possibly seem strange that Gordon, who had distinguished
himself as a soldier, and had saved an empire, should again take up the
humble avocation of an engineer officer, but so he did. He was in
reality only a captain of engineers, though a brevet lieutenant-colonel
in the army, when in February 1865 he returned home. He took a few
months' leave, which he spent quietly at Southampton with his father
and mother, shunning all publicity.
On the expiration of his leave he was sent to Gravesend, to superintend
the building of some forts for the protection of the Thames. During one
of our periodical panics as to the safety of the country, large sums of
money were voted for defensive purposes. Gordon's duties were very
subordinate as far as these defences were concerned. The plans were
made out by others, and his duty was merely to see them executed.
Though he worked very hard in the performance of his duty, he made no
secret of the fact that he thoroughly disapproved of the way in which
the national money was being wasted. It is said that one day, when the
Commander-in-chief came to inspect the progress of the work, Gordon
denounced the whole thing most vehemently, and exposed its
worthlessness. It is characteristic of the man that he had the courage
of his opinions at all times. He must have been carried away a good
deal by his feelings, for when he got home that day he said that he
might have been put under arrest for the way in which he had denounced
the work of his superiors. As it was, his Royal Highness smiled
good-naturedly at his vehemence, and took no further notice. But though
Gordon thoroughly disapproved of the nature of the defences on which he
was engaged, he worked very hard at them, and it certainly is through
no fault of his if the Thames fortifications are not all they should
be. He was an early riser and a hard worker, and as he hardly ever went
into society, and did not go in for games, he found time to engage in
all kinds of religious and philanthropic work, in addition to his other
duties. He spent six years at Gravesend, and, although this is not a
popular station with many officers, he found so much to be done, that
in after years he used to look back upon the time spent there as the
happiest of his life. After the stirring scenes through which he had
passed in the Crimea and in China, it may have appeared to some a very
commonplace, uninteresting sort of life to eke out for so many years,
but no one more than Gordon felt the force of the truth conveyed in the
lines:--
"'A commonplace life,' we say and we sigh;
But why should we sigh as we say?
The commonplace sun in the commonplace sky
Makes up the commonplace day.
The moon and the stars are commonplace things,
And the flower that blooms, and the bird that sings;
But dark were the world, and sad our lot,
If the flowers failed, and the sun shone not;
And God, who studied each separate soul,
Out of commonplace lives made His beautiful whole."
One remarkable characteristic of Gordon was the persistent way in which
he avoided publicity of any sort, evading every effort to bring him
forward. When he first came to Gravesend no one knew him, and he used
quietly to take a seat in the gallery of the parish church. As soon as
it was discovered that the stranger who occupied such a humble place,
was no other than the renowned "Chinese Gordon," great efforts were
made to induce him to take a more prominent position. But it was in
vain. What was good enough for the poor was good enough for him, and he
did not approve of the rich and the eminent occupying all the good
seats, to the exclusion of the poor, whose souls were just as valuable
in the sight of God. Again, he steadily refused to take the chair at
all public meetings. It was not that he could not speak at such
gatherings, for, although he was not a good speaker, he was by no means
a bad one, and he was always willing to conduct services for the poor.
He had a horror of taking a prominent position, and the only occasion
on which he ever broke through his rule as to taking the chair, was at
a meeting of some three hundred children over which he presided. He
was, however, very much at home when sitting in front of a class of
children, and this he infinitely preferred to giving formal addresses
even to children. Only once was he persuaded to address the whole
school collectively. Speaking to a large number of children requires a
special gift, and this he did not possess. His strength with children
lay in the fact that he obtained a personal influence over each one
individually. With a small class he could get to know each by name, and
win the affections of all one by one. The words, "He loved little
children," which were the only epitaph on the tomb of a certain
Sunday-school teacher, might well be applied to Gordon. It is difficult
to say what kind of teacher he was, or whether he availed himself of
the latest developments in the art of instructing children; but this is
quite clear, that he had one of the best qualifications a teacher can
possess, love for his pupils. There is a tale of a lady visitor who
once asked a little boy why he went so far to his Sunday-school, when
there were as good ones nearer at hand. The reply was, "They may be as
good, but they are not so good for me;" and when the lady asked him
"Why not?" he said, "Because they love a fellow over there." Love is a
qualification that is too often lacking in teachers, but it was one
that Gordon displayed very prominently. Need we wonder that the "dear
little fellows," as he used to call them, responded by loving him in
return?
Nor was it only in the Sunday-school that Gordon's love for the young
was exhibited; he also had a class in the ragged school, and used to
invite his boys to his house for instruction in the evening on week
days, as well as on Sunday evenings. When three or four of them had
scarlet fever, he nursed them in his own house, and would sit up at
night talking to them, till he could get them to drop off to sleep. He
used to call these boys "kings," a name suggested to him when reading
Rev. i. 6, "And hath made us kings and priests unto God." He exclaimed
to his sister, "Why then, these are little 'kings,'" and he stuck to
the name. He took great pains to secure good posts for his boys in
ships going to sea, and on a map on his wall he kept a number of little
flags representing the boys he had sent abroad. These flags he used to
move about as he heard from time to time where the lads were. We need
not be surprised that among these boys were some who ardently loved
him, and that they used to give expression to their feelings by
scribbling on the wall with a piece of chalk, as boys will do, "God
bless the Kernel," "C. G. is a jolly good fellow," or "Long life to our
dear teacher, Gordon." The ragged school at Gravesend still retains the
Chinese flags which he presented to the boys, flags which he had
himself captured from the Taiping rebels. They are now kept as precious
relics, to be displayed only on special occasions. Sir Henry Gordon
says, that when the news reached England of the death of the heroic
defender of Khartoum, a young man, about twenty-five years of age,
called on him to inform him that he and others who had been Gordon's
boys at Gravesend, wished to put up some kind of memorial to his
memory, and that he was willing to give L25. He was much overcome when
speaking of all that Gordon had done for him.
Another writer relates that on one occasion when Gordon was watching
some workmen, he saw among them a lad looking very unhappy. On his
inquiring, the lad said, "Mother has left us, and gone away from home;
and everything there is so miserable that it is not like home at all."
At once the boy was invited to spend his evenings at the Fort House,
where he was instructed in the night school class, and taught to read
his Bible. Some little time after this he fell ill, and the doctor
decided that he ought to be taken to the local infirmary. "Shall I see
you there, Colonel?" he asked with wistful eyes; "I know I am going to
die." "But you are not afraid," replied Gordon, "for now you know who
says, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life.' He will be as near to you
in the infirmary as here, and as near to you in death as in life." "Oh
yes, I know Him now;" and so he did, for as the narrator said, "The
Colonel had led him to Christ by his life and teaching." When in the
hospital the young lad said to a nurse, "Read the Bible to me, there is
nothing like it." "But you are very tired," said the nurse. "Yes, I am
very tired. I do long to go to Jesus." This is a briefly narrated
incident, and is but a specimen of many that might be recorded if space
permitted.
Gordon also took special pleasure in visiting the workhouse and talking
to the paupers, remembering that--
"Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness,
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more."
Workhouse inmates are, as a rule, a very disheartening class to visit.
A large percentage of them have been brought there by faults of their
own, and most of them are beyond the age when one may reasonably hope
for reform. Gordon's kind heart was proof against disappointment, and
he persistently used to visit the old people, supplying tobacco to the
men, and tea to the women, and chatting away to them, in an effort to
help them to forget their troubles. He was mindful, too, of the sick,
caring not who the sufferer was nor what his complaint; so long as he
was in need, so long was Gordon a regular visitor at his sick-bed.
Frequently when he heard that the doctors had ordered delicacies beyond
the reach of a patient, he would purchase what was required, and
administer it with his own hands. Mr. Lilley says:--
"On one occasion he visited a poor, wretched woman, in an
apparently dying condition. He at once lighted a fire, made some
gruel for her, and fed her with his own hand. He afterwards
appointed a nurse to look after her, and sent a doctor to her, and
it is believed that she is still residing at Gravesend, a living
testimony to his generous care."
The people so loved him, that often instead of sending for the
clergyman when in sickness or trouble, the poor would send for the
Colonel living at Fort House, the official residence of the officer
commanding the Royal Engineers.
Even his house and garden seem to have been placed at the disposal of
the poor in the neighbourhood. A visitor once remarked to his
housekeeper on the beautiful vegetables his garden produced. She
replied that the Colonel never touched them, but used to let the poor
people come in and cultivate plots of ground in the garden, and grow
their own vegetables; and even when presents of fruit were sent him by
friends, he used to take them to the bedside of some sick person, who
he thought needed them more than he did.
As for his own food, nothing could have been more simple and plain. The
Rev. S. H. Swaine says, "Coming home with us one afternoon late, we
found his tea waiting for him--a most unappetising stale loaf and a
teapot of tea. I remarked upon the dryness of the bread, when he took
the whole loaf (a small one) and crammed it into the slop-basin, and
poured all the tea upon it, saying it would soon be ready for him to
eat, and in half-an-hour it would not matter what he had eaten." It is
said that some of the boys whom he invited to live in his house were a
good deal disappointed when they saw the kind of fare that was put
before them. They had fondly imagined that the occupant of such a grand
house would have sumptuous meals, which they would share, and they were
not prepared for the plain salt-beef, and other good but very plain
food, to which the Colonel was in the habit of sitting down. But though
he denied himself luxuries of any sort, he often used to take grapes
and other dainties to the sick and the dying.
All forms of distress aroused his interest; and when the late Canon
Miller of Greenwich was collecting money for the suffering people at
Coventry, during the cotton famine, Gordon took a large and valuable
gold medal, that had been presented to him by the Empress of China, and
having with a gouge scooped out his name, which was engraved upon it,
put it into an envelope and despatched it to the Canon, merely
notifying briefly the object for which it was sent. Efforts have been
since made to discover the fate of the medal, which was of the best
gold, and twice the size of a crown piece, but owing to the death of
Canon Miller, they have hitherto been unsuccessful.
Gordon was, indeed, generous to a fault, and sometimes he was taken in
by impostors; but as he had a good knowledge of human nature, he was
not deceived so often as many with his generous heart would be. His
generosity was only limited by his purse, and there were times in his
life when he drew the line too fine, for, as he himself once said, "I
assure you that many a time I have not known where my food was to come
from, nor if I should find a place in which to lie down at night." So
long as there was money in his pocket, so long had he money to give
away; but on many occasions he forgot that he had a long railway
journey before him, and that the generosity he displayed to the needy
would not be extended to him at the railway ticket office. But on the
whole, his money was well laid out; many is the lad he started in life,
many the waif he picked up from the gutter, who, now a well-to-do
respectable member of society, might, but for him, have been a
criminal, getting into trouble himself, and leading others astray.
* * *
It would be interesting to follow more in detail the career of this
remarkable man at Gravesend, but space forbids. Gordon only spent six
years at this kind of work, and much of the time was engaged in his
official duties, yet the results were so good, that one cannot but
regret that a longer part of his career was not passed in the same way.
From his letters written in the Soudan, it is evident that he often
thought of devoting his old age to work among the poor, had he been
spared. It was, however, willed otherwise, and we are only permitted to
see how much can be done by a man in six years, when his heart is
thoroughly in the work.
It has been remarked more than once, that Gordon's military career
reminds one of the great soldier Cromwell, who did so much to rescue
England from the degenerate condition into which it had fallen under
the miserable rule of the Stuarts. In the same way the six years spent
by Gordon at Gravesend, very forcibly remind us of the great religious
philanthropist, Lord Shaftesbury, who did perhaps more than any other
man of this nineteenth century, or any other century, to relieve human
suffering, and to solve some of those difficult problems that are
associated with the condition of the poor. Lord Shaftesbury had little
in common with Cromwell, except that both loved God and hated tyranny
and injustice. Their ways of going to work were very different, but one
cannot help seeing that Gordon combined much of both characters; and
had his lot fallen in different times or different circumstances, he
might have undertaken the work of either. He had all the martial
instinct of a Cromwell, and, with it, the love of relieving suffering
which so characterised Lord Shaftesbury. His one object seems to have
been to--
"Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o'er the erring ones, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the Mighty to save."
Gordon was never allowed to carry on any work for any great length of
time, and the six years at Gravesend passed very quickly. In 1871 he
was appointed British representative on the European Commission to
superintend the improvement of the mouth of the Danube, so that it
might be made more navigable for ships. He was engaged in this work for
two years, with his headquarters at Galatz; and the eminent war
correspondent, Archibald Forbes, says that he "found his memory still
green there in the early years of the Russo-Turkish war, fourteen years
after he had exchanged the mosquitoes of the Lower Danube for the not
less venomous insects of the Upper Nile."
Apart from the testimony of Archibald Forbes, we may be quite sure that
he did some good work at Galatz, for it would be difficult to imagine
him doing nothing but the ordinary routine of official duties. He
always discovered an opening of some sort by which he could help his
fellow-creatures, and his active mind and sympathetic nature were, in
the words of Jean Ingelow, always asking the question of those with
whom he came in contact--
"Are there no briers across thy pathway thrust?
Are there no thorns that compass it about?
Nor any stones that thou wilt deign to trust
My hand to gather out?"
The time had now come when he was to be called to a new form of work,
one to which he was to give the best years of his life, and for which
ultimately he was to sacrifice life itself. In the Crimea and in China,
he had shown what he could do as a soldier; at Gravesend he had set a
noble example to the world of what a Christian philanthropist might do
in his spare hours; and now he was to be called to wage war with the
horrors of slavery. We had him in our midst for six years, and we found
no work for him worthy of his abilities; but while we overlooked his
merits, other nations were not so blind. Just as later on the King of
the Belgians was anxious to secure his services which we were allowing
to remain idle, so now Nubar Pasha, the far-sighted minister of Ismail
Khan, Khedive of Egypt, persuaded him to enter the Egyptian service,
and go to Africa as Governor of the Equatorial Provinces.
But before we follow him into the Soudan, it may be well to dwell for a
little on the distinctly religious aspect of his life.